The Amazon Community

In the Blogosphere there are pretty often discussions on if we bloggers have to write negative reviews. Should we post them? Do we hurt the authors? Almost everyone agrees; negative reviews are needed sometimes, and if they stay respectful to the author, why not? (Discussion: Should Bloggers Post Negative Reviews?)

I have had some run-ins with authors that commented on my review on Goodreads, but it always stayed pretty polite. If it was about a mistake in my review, I would say sorry, I'll correct that. And if it wasn't, I would point out that it was my personal opinion. I have also emailed some authors when the book really, really wasn't for me, and politely declined to write a review.

On community sites like Goodreads and in the book-blogging community, negative reviews are just a part of life. Just like the raving 5-star ones. But on Amazon I have found out that this isn't the case. I found out the hard way.

I got called names. I "had to get over myself", "no one is interested in my opinion" and "can only write overly critical rants and nothing else". I actually felt so bad about that 2-star review that I was thinking about taking it down from Amazon. I asked a few of my bloggish friends, and I'm glad they advised me to keep it up. The review was a rant, yes, but I didn't say anything bad at all. I reported the person that was hateful, and the comment got deleted.

Now I have added another review, this time a 3-star one on Anne Rice's new book. If you're interested, you can read it here. For some reason, I get a massive amount of downvotes, again. I don't say anything bad or condescending. It just not my thing. And it isn't just me; apparently Amazon customers don't find negative reviews helpful. About 80% of the reviews on all the books on Amazon are 5-star reviews. There are barely critical ones, and if there are bad reviews, they get downvoted into the ground.

It makes me a bit sad that speaking your mind isn't appreciated there. I want to support authors by posting my reviews on Amazon (as the saying goes - even bad publicity is good publicity), but I'm starting to doubt my decision.

What do you think? Do you post your reviews on Amazon? Even the negative ones? Have you had negative responses to your reviews?

Should Bloggers Post Negative Reviews?

Lately there seem to be countless incidents in which reviewers are being attacked for expressing their honest opinion about a book. This rises the question, should you post negative reviews on your blog/Goodreads/Amazon etc?

I think the following has happened to almost everyone that has been blogging for a while. An author contacts you  and asks you to review his or her book. You read the blurb, read some reviews and decide to give the book a try. Sadly enough, you don't like it. At all. What to do now? Not post the review, and offending the author you promised a review to, or do post the review, and offending the author by giving the book him or her provided a bad review. 

I have been faced with that dilemma multiple times, and I have done both the not posting and the posting. Personally, I lean towards the post-your-bad-review camp. The only time I've decided against it was when I was part of a certain book tour, and I couldn't get through the book. I did like the author though, and I'm sure other people will absolutely love the book, but it wasn't for me. Maybe it was just bad timing, I don't know. Anyway, I didn't want to spoil the author's book tour, so I just did my tour stop like a good girl, but didn't add a review to it.

However, I think you should be able to post your not so good reviews as a blogger. If we would all only write raving reviews, how can readers decide for themselves if they would like the book or not? To be properly informed, you should know both the good and the bad. Before I buy the book I always read some 1 or 2-star reviews on Goodreads. If they complain about things that don't bother me, I'm almost a hundred percent sure I'll like the book and it will be safe to buy it.

If you only post 5-star reviews, there is also the problem that no one believes that you write your own honest opinion any more. And that's exactly what being a reviewer is about. We don't get paid by any company. People read our blogs because we love reading and we like to talk about our experiences as readers.

One thing that I think no blogger should ever do, is to attack an author personally. You can hate a book, sure. But don't make it a personal fight. And just because you didn't like it doesn't mean that someone else can't like it.

In my opinion everyone should review the way he or she feels is right. As long as you stay honest, and stay kind.

What do you think? Do you write negative reviews? And what do you do if you have "befriended" an author, would you still post a negative review? Leave a comment and join the discussion!